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March 30, 2015

Fulgur Esoterica has published a new peer-reviewed journal called Black Mirror that has a focus on the overlap of art and the occult. The content of the first issue (Volume 0) looks to be intriguing and insightful:

There will be a US release party for it here in NYC this Friday, hosted by magickal kingpin and Black Mirror contributor, Jesse Bransford. I would be there myself if I could be, but you shouldn't miss this:

A New York release party for Black Mirror 0 - Territory

Friday April 3, 7-9pm

Interstate Projects 66 Knickerbocker Ave Brooklyn, NY 11237

Black Mirror seeks to examine ways in which the occult and the esoteric have been at the heart of art practice now and throughout the modernist period. It is part of a growing movement that seeks to critique the dominant twentieth-century notion of disenchantment, and that rejects notions of the esoteric and occult as irrational, escapist, regressive and essentially anti-modern. In addition to presenting new research on the modernist period, Black Mirror will consider especially work being made by artists, film-makers and other practitioners now.

This peer-reviewed series is based at the Arts University Bournemouth, UK in partnership with NYU Steinhardt, New York and published by Fulgur Esoterica. It is produced by a group of artists and researchers and much of the work examined will be practice-led. Hence this volume includes both essays on contemporary and modernist work, and new works by artists. Black Mirror is intended as a meeting place for all those interested in the arts and the occult and esoteric. Our philosophy is deliberately pluralistic and will include all areas of the arts.

March 27, 2015

I've been a great fan of Sara Hannant's photographs ever since I learned of her "Mummers, Maypoles, and Milkmaids" series which documented modern English practices of pagan rites. I had the pleasure of meeting her when, in a twist of synchronicity, we ended up sitting next to one another at the I:MAGE conference in London last October, and I found her to be as lovely as her work.

Hannant has a new show opening in April called "Numinous," which collects her photographs of the fiber leavings of offerings made at Cornwall's Holy Wells. This work manages to explore this tradition while reanimating these devotional actions with further creative energy.

Numinous is inspired by the tradition of offering votive rags at Cornwall’s Holy Wells.

Wells have long been regarded as sacred places and there remains a firm belief that wishing at wells can magically transform events.

A ribbon or piece of fabric from a person’s clothing, sometimes called a ‘cloutie’, is tied to a nearby tree. As the cloutie falls and re-enters the earth the wish is fulfilled.

However the incompatibility of unnatural fabrics to complete this process prompted Sara Hannant’s investigation. She uses forces of nature to create visceral images that combine ritual with metaphors of spiritual transformation.

Her photographs, made in camera, appear to expose spirits or human forms in an imaginaryrealm which invite magical belief.

Sara Hannant says, “The work explores a dialogue between contemporary votive rags and ancient folk magic. On my first visit to the Holy Wells in Cornwall I noticed numerous colourful cloths and ribbons tied to the trees, some were inscribed with healing wishes. Among the rags hung a corn dolly, a silver St Christopher medallion and several Tibetan prayer flags. However many people who leave offerings are of an undefined spirituality: the cloths connect pilgrims’ hopes and dreams to the opaque but powerful numinous.”

She is returning to Forty Hall Estate with Numinous, following the success of her touring exhibition Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey through the English Ritual Year which was well-received at the Hall in 2014. The event and exhibition programme at Forty Hall Estate focuses on art, ecology and heritage and the Jacobean interiors of the Hall will provide a unique backdrop for Hannant’s strikingly beautiful imagery.

March 23, 2015

I'm so looking forward to this coming Sunday evening, when I'll be presenting on the archetype of the witch as part of Legacy of the Witch: A Slutist Feminist Festival at Greenpoint's infamous St. Vitus bar. This will be an extravaganza featuring musicians, burlesque performers, and artists who will all be channeling the dark feminine in celebration of the 2nd anniversary of feminist-forward website, Slutist. Performers include Karyn Crisis' Gospel of the Witches, Azar Swan, Delphic Oracle, Chicava HoneyChild, The Reverend Mother Flash, Severely Mame, and Minx Arcana, and I'm honored to get to kick the night off by offering a bit of context and invocation of the artistic lineage of which we creators belong.

Doors are 5pm, show starts at 6pm. Tickets are available here. Looking forward to communing with you there and then.

March 18, 2015

Tilo Baumgärtel's paintings feel folkloric and fresh, with lyrical linework and sherbert colors. I'm particularly taken by his Japanese monster, above. She's a study in charming inversion, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about her since I first encountered this piece on the Obeah NYC blog a few weeks back.

March 13, 2015

I'm enjoying the images from Rubenimichi's "Sol negro" show up now at Madrid's La Fresh Gallery. I'm particularly drawn to the pieces that incorporate Platonic solids into these compelling occultic heraldry symbols. Such a simple idea, executed with elegance.

March 10, 2015

I often lament about how so many wondrous things take place far away from where I live, but this one has sent me into paroxysms of jealous rage. Melinda Gebbie, underground comix queen, visionary artist, and Lost Girls illustrator extraordinaire, is having a solo show next month at London's Horse Hospital. Presented in collaboration with Strange Attractor, "Melinda Gebbie: What is the Female Gaze?" will feature 90 fem-tasmagoric works including paintings, drawings, and a bit of sculpture for good measure. Praying to the print goddesses that there will be a catalog for this one. Details:

PRIVATE VIEW: FRIDAY 10th APR 7PM

EXHIBITION: SAT 11th APR – SAT 9th MAY, MON – SAT, 12 – 6PM

An invasive exotic species in her own right, Melinda Gebbie was recently approached by a neighbourhood artist seeking fifty women contributors to a project based around her own fiftieth birthday. The Californian Underground Comix luminary and psychedelic visionary ventured enthusiastically that such a project could be an interesting way of promoting the female gaze. To which the artist replied, “Well, I try to include them whenever I can”, an earnest liberal response. True story.

In her first, crucial exhibition at Bloomsbury’s Horse Hospital the former Haight-Ashbury runaway, West Coast punk affiliate and anti-nuclear animator reveals forty years of incendiary culture viewed through a unique and finely-ground female lens. The riotous pink frontline of a generation’s sexual expression and sexual politics is charted here in eighty drawings and seven revelatory paintings, ranging from ferocious engagements with her predominantly male Underground contemporaries, through the account of her very English obscenity trial and book-burning in ‘Public Enemy’, to a three-dimensional extension of her legendary pornographic masterpiece Lost Girls, with writer Alan Moore, in the form of three exquisite bronze casts of the iconic protagonists.

In crackling documentary black and white, in a neurological rapture of colour, here is the female gaze in all its awesome and gorgeous lucidity. Here, at last, is Underground Heaven.

March 09, 2015

Alex Da Corte has created an haute haunted house, and it's such a good idea I'm surprised I've not heard of anyone in the art world doing it before. "Die Hexe" fills the entire townhouse of the Luxembourg & Dayan gallery, and viewers walk through eerie, color-drenched rooms that look a bit Lynch-meets-Argento. It's luxe and lurid, propped with fetish objects, covered in acid patterning, and lit with black lights. A great hors d'oeuvre to his upcoming MASS MoCA show next spring.

Alex Da Corte, Die Hexe February 26 – April 11, 2015 Opening reception: Thursday, February 26th, 6-8 pm Luxembourg & Dayan, New York 64 East 77th Street, New York City

NEW YORK…Beginning February 26, 2015, Luxembourg & Dayan will present Die Hexe, a solo exhibition by Alex Da Corte. For Die Hexe(“The Witch” in German), Da Corte has created a site-specific installation that consumes the gallery’s East 77th Street townhouse, turning it into an implausible cross between a dollhouse and a haunted house. Here visitors will take on a journey through familiar imagery and obscure biographical references that mingle, repeat, trade places, and morph into new provocations that invite reflections upon memory, impulse, the stability of knowledge, and what constitutes value in a work of art.

Da Corte’s largest installation to date, Die Hexe will remainon view through April 11th, 2015. The exhibition will introduce a broader audience to the work of an admired Philadelphia-based artist whose first major museum solo exhibition will open at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in March 2016.

Die Hexe is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring a text by Da Corte and a new essay by William Pym.

From the moment they cross the threshold of Luxembourg & Dayan into Die Hexe, visitors will find themselves confronted by a series of vignettes that unfold sequentially like scenes in a movie, proceeding from one gallery space to the next, from one floor to another. These “sets” correspond roughly to the familiar themes and functions of domestic rooms. In each mise en scene along the way, Da Corte has embedded an artwork by another artist who serves him as foil or father figure. Sculptures by Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Bjarne Melgaard, and Haim Steinbach thus appear out of context like unannounced guests, familiar yet estranged. Through Da Corte’s deliberate placement, these iconic works of art – all originally intended by their makers to question modes of presentation, among other things – are subjected to a strange rebirth.

Disruptions of authorship and interrogations of an artwork’s unique aura have long been facets of Da Corte’s artistic practice. In Die Hexe, these fascinations are also linked to the unique attributes of the gallery’s wider program. Thinking about Luxembourg & Dayan’s role as a platform for the re-evaluation of historical works of art (particularly under-recognized but pivotal postwar European painting and sculpture), Da Corte was prompted to adopt a similar conceptual framework, studying the very notion of re-evaluating something considered “valuable”. Consequently, Die Hexe suggests a series of Duchampian questions about art’s ability to maintain its life force when removed from an originally intended context

Da Corte also was inspired by the history of Luxembourg & Dayan’s building. He learned that past tenants of the townhouse included the two men and two women who comprised The Mamas and The Papas, among the most famous American bands of the 1960s, who, according to rumor, sequestered themselves in the house to create one of their most important albums. This lore precipitated an interrogation into the influence of Da Corte’s ancestors—both his “conceptual forefathers” in art and the two couples who were his biological grandparents. Such free association and intertwining of narratives gives Die Hexe a distinct sense of contingency and continuation.

Da Corte’s installations are known for adopting the artificiality and glossy, detached aesthetics of commerce and advertising; they draw equally upon his recollections and biography. Thus Die Hexe interweaves disconnected snippets of memory within its hermetic surroundings, even while rejecting nostalgia. For example, a pantry smelling of spices and filled with anonymous products harkens back to the artist's very personal relationship to the retail landscape of grocery stores: Both of Da Corte’s grandfathers worked along the food supply chain, albeit at opposite ends. One grandfather opened Venezuela’s first modern supermarket, which over time spawned a conglomerate, while the other grandfather worked simultaneously as a supermarket shelf stocker in New Jersey. Elsewhere in the exhibition, Da Corte grafts elements of his grandmother’s house onto the gallery’s surroundings, with craft-based décor such as woven rugs, quilt patterns, and wreathes signaling this transference.

Drawing the visitor through scenes that suggest an array of states, from fear and anger, to amusement and lust, to morbid contemplation, Die Hexe traces a cycle of emotions, while broaching questions of memory and biography, consumerism, American culture, folklore and the history of art. Pockets of experience are visited and revisited; ghost replicas of works of art are introduced; and the end mirrors a beginning that returns to haunt us.

About The Artist

Alex Da Corte (b. 1980) lives and works in Philadelphia. He received his BFA from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and his MFA from Yale University, New Haven, in 2010. He has recently had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2014; together with Jayson Musson), Carl Kostyal, Stockholm (2014), White Cube, London (2014), David Risley, Copenhagen (2014), the Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine (2013), Oko, New York (2013; together with Borna Sammak) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2012). His work was included in numerous group exhibitions in venues that include The Museum of Modern art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Zach Feuer Gallery, New York; Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York; Team Gallery, New York; Yvon Lambert, New York.

Luxembourg & Dayan is located at 64 East 77th Street between Madison and Park Avenues. The gallery is open to the public Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm.

March 02, 2015

This week, a blockbuster Leonora Carrington exhibition opens at Tate Liverpool, and I wish so much that I could see it. Regardless, it's heartening to witness this surrealist master beginning to get the recognition and institutional accolades she deserves, even if posthumously. May it help new generations of viewers fall in love with her enchanting art works as much as I have. Details:

Leonora Carrington invites you to discover the fantastical creations of the prolific painter and internationally celebrated member of the surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington (1917-2011).

The exhibition explores Carrington’s diverse creative practice, taking a selection of key paintings made throughout her career as its starting point. A prolific painter, the exhibition explores how Carrington established her distinctive take on surrealism. Working alongside other key members of the movement, such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst, her paintings, filled with eccentric characters which shift between plant, animal, human, objects and everything in between, will remind visitors unfamiliar with her work of her better known peers.

Arguably more famous for her personal life than her art, her biography is almost as unusual as her marvellous creations. The daughter of a wealthy British industrialist, in 1935 she turned her back on her upper-class upbringing in northern England after embarking upon a complicated relationship with Ernst, and via surrealist circles in France and New York, established a unique voice within the vibrant creative culture of Mexico in 1941.

It was in Mexico that Carrington’s practice began to expand and evolve. She filled plays, short stories and textiles with her extraordinary worlds, embracing set and costume design for productions including her own, Penelope. Leonora Carrington will showcase her work in painting alongside examples of poetry, sculpture, tapestry and design for theatre and film.

Refusing to be constrained or restricted by conventional limitations, Carrington’s expanded practice has made her an inspiration to many contemporary artists working across creative channels and platforms. Her patron Edward James commented in 1975 that ‘she has never relinquished her love of experimentation, the result being that she has been able to diversify and explore a hundred or more techniques for the expression of her creative powers’.

Leonora Carrington coincides with the 2015 Year of Mexico in the UK celebrations.

I don't see a catalog for this show available, but for those of you who are interested, I cannot recommend this monograph more highly, both for the stunning images and the brilliant writing by the extraordinary scholar, Susan L. Aberth: Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy, and Art.

February 25, 2015

I've had a deep connection to the goddess Artemis since I was a child, and she's been making her presence known to me lately in very strong ways since my birthday earlier this month. My wonderful parents bought a figure of her for me at the Nashville Parthenon. Then a conversation with my mom's best friend revealed that there's a new Jean Shinoda Bolen book out, called Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman, which my mom subsequently added to the present.

On my actual birthday, I popped into the ever-marvelous shop, Catbird, and discovered a new line of magick-infused bath and home products called Obeah which I fell in love with. After bringing home a bottle of their rosey bath crystals, I fell down the rabbit hole of their site and of proprietor-perfumer Jonathan Steadman's blog, wherein I discovered the work of Pierre Monestier featured above. And lo and behold, a recurring theme in Monestier's work is the Artemis and Actaeon myth, one of my very favorite stories, as I've mentioned before.

Monestier's work on the whole is ravishing and takes its cue from the Surrealists with its depictions of myth, sexuality, and bodily mutations. His painting style is a bit swollen like Léger, and his drawings in particular appeal to me, with their macaron-colored tints and and askew perspective. I would have featured his work regardless. But to find my dear Artemis appear there with her stag-headed watcher, well that was the icing on the cosmic cake.

February 24, 2015

El Gato Chimney's wild works first caught my eye last year in Stephen Romano Gallery's witchcraft themed group show, In Missa Interfectionis. I was charmed by the ways in which he seemed to mash up zoological fables with alchemical iconography, and paint with an exacting eye reminiscent of the old masters. Happily, his solo show, De Rerum Natura, opens at the gallery next week on Thursday, March 5th, and will be up through April 30th. Even more happily, I was invited to be one of the three essayists for the catalog, alongside the illustrious Martin Wittfooth and Michela D'Acquisto. I can't wait to celebrate at the opening next Thursday night, and see these new pieces in person. There is such delight in not only basking in their vividness, but in attempting to decode them.

As I wrote in my essay:

Upon first glance at a work of his, one is greeted by a tapestry of animals and symbols that flirt with the viewer, batting esoteric eyelashes, inviting interpretation. Each piece looks like a page from a tome that’s part alchemical manuscript, part bestiary, and their yellowed borders enhance the effect. Symbols from various mystic systems float in space. Scraps of Latin flutter in the foreground. These paintings are hieroglyphic. They beg to be read.

And who wouldn’t want to know their stories? Who wouldn’t want to be regaled with tales about fauna festooned in ceremonial garb, in scarlet masks, perched on trees and mountain peaks? Who wouldn’t want to hear the one about the burro in the boat, burdened with a back full of clay vessels and a hat that’s a house on fire? Or the one where the decapitated rooster with a devil in his chest grips a key in its serpentine tongue?

The trouble is – the pleasure is – that as these images nuzzle our consciousness, they resist precise translation.

El Gato Chimney "The Oracle" 2015

Some more information about the artist, and the show:

Stephen Romano Gallery is proud to present DE RERUM NATURA, Italian artist EL GATO CHIMNEY's first one person exhibition in the United States.

El Gato Chimney was born in 1981 in Milan, where he lives and works.

He started his career as a self-taught artist, developing an early interest in graffiti that made him pursue a successful journey into street art, as evidenced by his presence in leading publications on the subject.

As the years went by, thanks to the acquisition of new knowledge and the need to continuously improve his technical skills, the artist began to prefer to work in his studio, dedicating his time to an introspective research to depict immaterial things, such as emotions and inner visions.

Currently, El Gato Chimney's studies range over a wide variety of subjects, such as alchemy, ancient and modern art, magic, mirabilia, occultism, popular folklore, primitive art and spiritualism.

He has shown in many international art fairs, galleries and museums, including the Museo Della Permanente, Milan; the Milan Triennale; Antonio Colombo Contemporary Art, Milan; MADRE Museum Of Contemporary Art, Naples; Stephen Romano Gallery, New York City; the Musei Capitolini-Centrale Montemartini, Rome.

His works are included in a number of international publications, such as Hi-Fructose; Huffington Post; Hunt & Gather: Discovering New Art, Mark Batty Publisher, 2010; Los Colores Del Underground, Astiberri, 2009.

For his show at Stephen Romano Gallery, the artist proposes to further investigate the themes dear to him in a new body of works, including paintings, large-format watercolors on paper, and a site-specific installation.

I do hope you'll join us at the opening next Thursday, March 5th from 6-9pm, or visit the show while it's up through April. Prepare to be intrigued and illuminated by these beguiling creatures.

February 19, 2015

Yet another Outsider Art Fair discovery, this time courtesy of the Fountain Gallery booth. Anthony Ballard was a NYC resident and self-taught artist who happened upon a 25 cent box of Rapidograph pens in a church rummage sale and never looked back. This is work that suffers a bit in digital form, because it simply looks like a computer graphic. But therein lies its magnificence: it was all done by Ballard's hand in jaw-droppingly intricate detail. I gravitated toward his precise, mystical pieces, though his erotic bubble drawings are fantastic as well - sort of R. Crumb meets Chris Ware. More on Ballard here.

February 18, 2015

Another Outsider Art Fair revelation: I was in the Marion Harris booth and happened upon some stunning pieces by Robert Buratti. This one in particular reminded me of some of Seligmann's work, which is one of the highest compliments I can give. "Oh," I said to the lovely man who seemed to be in charge there, "This is gorgeous. I'm very familiar with Robert Buratti's gallery in Australia, but I'm embarrassed to say I had no idea he was an artist himself." "I'm Robert Buratti," said the lovely man. We chatted for a bit, and he gave me a copy of his monograph of occult-infused drawings and altar paintings.

It was a wonderful synchronicity to make his acquaintance. And a joy to meet his work. He is a master of rendering, and one of the few contemporary artists I can think of who approaches the esoteric with an almost photographic attention to detail. I dithered over whether or not to feature one of his meditative cabinet pieces here instead, but opted to trust my first impulse. But do be sure to view his entire oeuvre, it is lush and full of mystery and created with impeccable skill.

February 13, 2015

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! What better way to celebrate than to watch occult scholar, Mitch Horowitz, wax wyrd in his marvelous new web series, Origins: Superstitions. Created with eerie filmmaker extraordinaire, Ronni Thomas, the series explores the reasons behind thirteen prominent superstitions including the avoidance of black cats, knocking on wood, and clutching a lucky rabbit's foot. Each episode is informative, fun, and beautifully art directed with delightful animations and spooky tunes.

As a big bonus, you can see Horowitz and Thomas present the series live tonight at the Morbid Anatomy Museum. Wish I could be there myself, but copying details below for those of you who are lucky enough to be able to go:

There are very few of us who don’t abide by at least one, if not a battery, of rituals to ensure good luck or protect us from bad. We may knock on wood to prevent a jinx, toss spilled salt over our left shoulder, or fearfully avoid breaking a mirror to avert the dreaded 7 years of bad luck. But why? Find out this Friday the 13th, with filmmaker Ronni Thomas and Mitch Horowitz, author of “Occult America” as we celebrate the launch of their new web series “Origins : Superstitions”.

The series is a 13-episode exploration of our culture’s most enduring superstitions. hosted by occult historian Mitch Horowitz. All 13 2-minute episodes will screen throughout the night. There will also be a brief introduction to the series, and an in-depth look at some of history’s most trenchant superstitions. Throughout the museum, you’ll be tempted to “test”your superstitious side, with ladders, umbrellas, mirrors, and more. Complimentary “Superstitious” cocktails will be provided while supplies last!

Ronni Thomas is the film-maker in residence at The Morbid Anatomy Museum. He is also the creator and director of the “Midnight Archive” web series (www.themidnightarchive.com), “Walter Potter the Man Who Married Kitten” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjHBpxIa45U), and the upcoming “Morbid Anatomy Presents” film series.

Mitch Horowitz (www.mitchorowitz.com) is a PEN Award-winning historian and the author of “Occult America” and “One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life.”

February 03, 2015

Marcos Bontempo is another artist whose work I became acquainted with at the Outsider Art Fair, courtesy of the lovely Carl Hammer of Chicago's Carl Hammer Gallery, who spent much time with me discussing his work and sharing a binder of more pieces than he had room to hang on the booth walls. Bontempo uses ink, and at times sparkling mica chips, to paint macabre creatures in spindly silhouette. They remind me a bit of Antony Gormley's body drawings, albeit with more mythical leanings.

February 02, 2015

Andrea Joyce Heimer "Our Crushes Became Mythological In Scope, Their Subjects A Combination Of Unknown Facts, Hearsay, Speculation, And Projected Desires. No Human Could Live Up To Our Imaginations, Least Of All The Boys On Which We Were Fixated."

The Outsider Art Fair was tremendous as ever this weekend, and thanks to it I've got several new discoveries to share with you here. First up is Andrea Joyce Heimer, whose work I'm totally smitten with. Her painted vignettes of suburban coming-of-age memories are made up of equal parts charm and pathos. She recalls incidents of pre-teen infatuation, encounters with offbeat neighbors, and moments of menace that left her imprinted years later. The scenes have an odd, flattened perspective, wonderfully weird embellished interior decor, figures wearing textiles frenzied with pattern, and the occasional monster. Plus, I'm a sucker for titles in general, and Heimer is a black belt picture namer, with long and specific captions that read like miniature poems. Overall, her work hits a similar sweet spot for me as Lynda Barry's does. Its madcap energy belies a searing vulnerability that fills my heart with a delicious, knowing ache.

January 30, 2015

Just a reminder that the Outsider Art Fair is happening here in NYC through this weekend. This is one of my very favorite fairs, as it features work by "fringe" artists who are often self-taught, obscure, visionary, or otherwise marginal. I understand the term "outsider" is a controversial one these days, especially as some of these artists have become renowned and their pieces now fetch high prices. But I think the intention behind the show is an important one, and I often discover work there that feel more exciting and unusual to me than much what of the gallery-industrial complex tends to showcase. Go if you can.

January 29, 2015

I've posted about Evie Falci before, and I'm pleased to report she has a new show of work up now at The Lodge Gallery. The exhibition is called "Voids and Invocations," and visually contemplates the creative process of pulling something from nothingness. As ever, I admire Falci's media choices, as she uses oft-maligned materials like pleather and studs to create works about divinity. The sacred and the profane indeed.

Evie Falci

Voids and Invocations

Jan. 28 – Feb 28, 2015

It always begins the same way. The primordial void, the vast chaotic emptiness of pre-creation before time began. And then out of nothing the void is punctured and orders are formed around the developing architecture of creation.

This is the kind of language that ancient poets and contemporary psychologists like Manly. P. Hall or Carl Jung use to correlate alchemical symbolism with the development of the psycho-spiritual life of the individual. Here our unknown selves are the void and our consciousness is born from the void ex nihilo, ready to be formed by naturally occurring archetypal orders that are universal but result in multitudinous expressions of subjectivity.

It is also an accurate account of the ritualized studio practice of Brooklyn based artist Evie Falci. Using the language of esoteric symbolism and sacred geometry, Falci’s alchemical gold is definitively spiritual and her transmutation of metals occur in complicated geometric compositions of punk rock studs and pleather. She does not plan her paintings to a definitive degree before she begins. Instead, she taps into a type of shamanistic creative invention with a loose guide of esoteric rules and a personal symbolic order of geometries to guide each unique construction.

Here, in her first solo exhibition at The Lodge Gallery, Falci continues to explore the development of insight and intuition through the arrangement of symbolic imagery. Her most recent paintings of studs on pleather act as invocations meant to conjure allusions to the spirit world and, like totems, become activated access points to other unworldly dimensions. Cross referencing multiple cultural influences, including Islamic mosaics, ritual body scarification and tattooing, South American textiles, alchemical and esoteric symbols that span from India and the ancient Levant to fraternal enlightenment period hieroglyphics, she has built a composite visual language that is as deeply personal as it is accessible to a popular cultural audience. Harnessing the familiar appeal of popular materials such as denim and pleather, rhinestones and steel studs, her completed compositions are lush and tactile, mysterious and imbibed with magical incantations and divine presence that transform the superficial into the transcendental, and ultimately elevate the baser materials so that they appear to surpasses the sum of their parts.

Evie Falci (born 1985, Brooklyn, NY) is a 2007 graduate of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland. She participated in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program in 2011 – 2012. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions at various venues, including, Hudson, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, Feature Inc.,New York and Gallery Diet, Miami, and is part of Art in Embassies, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her most recent solo exhibition Everything All Night was at Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York in 2013. Falci continues to live and works in Brooklyn, NY.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It is the exhibition venue of Republic Worldwide and serves as both an art space and a gathering place for hearty discourse and experimentation.

Broadcast will have their long out of print LPs made available again through Warp Records. ‘Work And Non Work’, ‘The Noise Made By People’, ‘HaHa Sound’, ‘Tender Buttons’,‘The Future Crayon’ and ‘Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age’ will be released on March 9th 2015.

A free 8 page 10” x 10” Broadcast booklet, featuring album artwork, will be available for initial orders through Bleep and other independent records shops.

January 23, 2015

Bjork is set to have an epic year. Her new album, Vulnicura, was released digitally a few days ago (two months early to get ahead of leaks), and it's a stunner. A sonic document of heartbreak, it shreds, in the cosmic sense: it aches, it keens, it cuts me to shimmering ribbons. The hard copy will be released in March, and this is one instance where I'm sure I'll rebuy it then, as so much of what makes her an exceptional artist are her visuals.

Fitting then that she's also being given a retrospective at MoMA in the spring. I'm over the moon about this, and can't wait to walk amongst her costumes, album art, videos, et al.:

Björk

March 8–June 7, 2015

The Museum of Modern Art presents a retrospective of the multifaceted work of composer, musician, and artist Björk. The exhibition draws from more than 20 years of the artist’s daring and adventurous projects and her seven full-length albums—from Debut (1993) to Biophilia (2011)—to chronicle her career through sound, film, visuals, instruments, objects, costumes, and performance. The installation will present a narrative, both biographical and imaginatively fictitious, cowritten by Björk and the acclaimed Icelandic writer Sjón. Björk’s collaborations with video directors, photographers, fashion designers, and artists will be featured, and the exhibition culminates with a newly commissioned, immersive music and film experience conceived and realized with director Andrew Thomas Huang and 3-D design leader Autodesk.

Organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art, and Director, MoMA PS1.

This exhibition will also see the release of an accompanying book called Bjork: Archives, which sounds like an incredible artifact unto itself:

Bjork is a contemporary icon whose contributions to music, video, film, fashion and art have influenced a generation worldwide. Here, now, is the ultimate celebration of this multimillion-selling superstar. Designed by top design studio M/M (Paris) as a slipcased world of wonders, this publication which accompanies springs exhibition on Bjork at The Museum of Modern Art is composed of six parts: four booklets, a paperback and a poster. Each booklet contains illustrated texts by, respectively, Klaus Biesenbach, Alex Ross, Nicola Dibben and Timothy Morton, while the poster features artwork of Bjorks albums and singles. The main book focuses on her seven major albums Debut, Post, Homogenic, Vespertine, Medulla, Volta and Biophilia and the personas created for each one. Poetic texts by longtime collaborator, Icelandic author Sjón, are accompanied by shots of Bjork performing live; multiple stills from music videos made by directors including Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze; images of Bjork in breathtaking costumes by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan; and shots by star photographers such as Nan Goldin, Juergen Teller, Stephane Sednaoui, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, and Araki. All combine to form an extraordinary visual masterpiece, celebrating the magical world of Bjork.

January 22, 2015

Just a quick public service announcement to let you know that the catalog for the Cameron exhibition at LA MOCA is finally out. (This is not to be confused with the gorgeous Fulgur book of a similar name). I'm heartbroken to have missed seeing the show in person, but this is the next best thing.

January 21, 2015

It's the time of year when many of us get a case of the grays. I've been mindful of ways to keep warm this winter: lighting more candles, wearing more layers, exercising more often, pushing myself to see friends and family in the spirit of hygge. A trip to Arizona last week certainly helped: touring Paolo Soleri's utopian architectural experiment, Arcosanti, meditating in Sabino Canyon, visiting Antigone Books, chatting with my sweet snowbirding parents and their tiny dragon of dog.

Art is, as ever, a definite balm, and I find myself seeking works that play with fire or otherwise heat my blood. Lola's piece above fits the bill on both counts. Is the flame igniting her heart, or the reverse? No matter. I love this painting's cartoonish proportions and solemn faces. Who doesn't need to see an incendiary lady with a floppy bow, and her leonine, wig-wearing companion?

January 13, 2015

Art magus, Jesse Bransford, has been involved in a heavy and heady exploration of Icelandic magic of late, as evidenced by the extraordinary "Veil of Dreams" 3 month+ project he did with Max Razdow last year. The latest iteration is his recently released series of staves - essentially sigils for protection or conjuration that correspond to Odin's teachings as chronicled in the Norse poem, Hávamál. Bransford has adapted these runic workings via his own color magick system and other symbolic infusions, and the results are exquisite and highly potent. I jotted down some descriptor terms for these in my notebook, and I'm having trouble whittling them down, so please indulge me: clarity, mystery, elegance, intrigue, tenderness, subtlety, force, spirit machines. I highly recommend you view all 18 staves here.

January 06, 2015

Apologies for the radio silence, all. Last year was such a weird and wonderful doozy for me that by the time I got to December holiday madness, my brain kicked into full on hibernation mode. I had two blessed weeks off, in which I saw family, reconnected with some old friends, met my dear friends' new baby girl, watched loads of movies, read, exercised, and slept a ton. There was some magick-making for Solstice and the new year, but generally speaking I allowed myself to splash around in more exoteric pools. My reading list consisted solely of books that were funny and/or feminist, including the gargantuan Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests, Caitlain Morain's rollicking and heart-pangy novel about a music-obsessed teenage misfit, How to Build a Girl, and Roxane Gay's powerful and prickly essay collection, Bad Feminist. I felt resistant to blogging, emailing, planning, writing, talking on the phone. I battled feelings of guilt that I was not using my time off more "productively" or "creatively." I wrote lists of chores and errands to accomplish, and got through 1/3 of them. I refolded and filed all of my clothes (clothes filing is the best, yo). I hung out with Matt. I pet our cats. I watered our plants. I slept some more.

When New Year's Eve came around, I fell suddenly ill. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it felt like the equivalent of an ayahuasca purge, except without the fun visions. It was a bummer to miss celebrating with friends, but I think important for me to be housebound, getting residue of the year out of my system. That night, I did my usual New Year's ritual: lighting candles, taking stock, giving thanks, making wishes. As I listed out my experiences from 2014, it struck me that it was no wonder I was so depleted.

Last year, I led a big project about repicturing women in imagery for my day job. This project and I got a load of attention, something that was unprecendented and that I was not entirely prepared for, though I handled it with as much enthusiasm and passion as I was able. I'll not catalog the press and conferences and such here, because it's felt important to me to keep that separate from what I talk about on this site. But my travel schedule was intense, and the pressure triply so. I'm proud of the project, and grateful for the opportunities it brought, the skills it's allowed me to hone, and the amazing people and places I've gotten to encounter because of it. I went to Austin, LA, SF, Seattle, Chicago, Brazil, and France. I met incredible human beings from all walks of life who genuinely want to make a difference in the world, and I was humbled to be in the same room as them. I did my best to rise to each occasion.

At the same time, my Phantasmaphile-related talks and curiosities led me to such places as far-flung as Lily Dale and London's I:MAGE conference. The arts and events space I co-ran for 5 years, Observatory, dissolved, which was bitter and sweet and a relief and a loss. I did events at NYC's META Center, Catland, and Morbid Anatomy Museum. I started my own mailing list, and learned that I could fill a room with my own programming and talks, independent of a collective venue. I spent time in Catskill and Hudson with some of my favorite people on earth. We visited the Witchcraft Collection at Cornell, and subsequently saw the incredible "Surrealism and Magic" show they had at their jewel of an art museum. Matt and I went to Scotland and communed with beauty and whisky and wonderful friends and cairns. Matt got an illustrious and ridiculously well-deserved honor when he became a member of the New Dramatists. I gave my "Witch Pictures: Female Magic and Transgression in Western Art" talk several times, one of which led me to putting together a video essay on witches in cinema for Lincoln Center's Film Comment. Rik Garrett's monograph, Earth Magic, came out, and I thrilled to see my introduction for it finally in print. I worked on new issues of Abraxas. I'm forgetting things. I know I'm forgetting things. But you get the idea.

So. I am trying to be at peace with limping toward the finish line at the end of the year. I am trying to accept that it's natural to need to recharge and replenish. To allow the fields to lay fallow for a bit. To trust that beautiful things are going to burst forth for 2015, even if I'm not sure what they all are yet. And that the best way to cultivate them is to rest and laugh and be still and take care. I have projects to work on and things to work toward. We all do. But for now, I offer you this vision of universal harmony and lunar manifestation, courtesy of Rithika Merchant. May you trust that there are deep and sparking actions happening quietly beneath the soil, right now in the dark, getting ready to flourish verdantly in the year to come. And may you enjoy some gentleness and mirth in the meantime.

World Wide Women is a creative collective of female photographers and artists from around the world. World Wide Women represents the free, indomitable spirit of women in the world of art today.

Curated by New York gallerist Andi Potamkin, of Manhattan gallery and boutique Kasher|Potamkin.

World Wide Women has chosen to explore the theme, Ritual: an homage to that which is lost but not forgotten, a prayer to that which is desired but not realised. Ritual promises to answer endless questions and offers escape from an unfulfilled reality. It is an act of veneration for the bird that has flown away, and for the hope of its return. The photographs, videos, and works on paper in this exhibition tell the story of a woman longing for that, which has gone, and craving that which has not yet arrived. A ritual requires physical imitation, but does not arise out of it. The infusion of pure emotion and true belief is what elevates the act to ritual. The action, in-and-of itself pure mimicry, is simply a part of the ritual as a whole. It is the combination of the conviction in the unknown and the intangible that makes it so. Ritual is arranged in a spectrum of colour and emotion, representing the different stages of a ritual: memory, sacrifice, reverence, and longing. The experience of viewing the show takes the observer through this journey, giving access to the wholly personal act of ritual as experienced by each of the artists: one in which the active body is not alone, but joined by an unnamed force.

In keeping with the experiential focus of Ritual, the exhibition will open with an evening of multisensory events. Visitors will be immersed in an array of scents and sounds as essence, film and even live musical performance occupy the gallery space. Short films will include Sandy Toes by Budapest-based artist Maximilla Lukacs, and A Story of Ophelia by Anouska Beckwith, while young British singer-songwriter Flo Morrissey will play the evening out with a short acoustic set. Founded in 2012 by fine-art photographer and artist Anouska Beckwith, World Wide Women acts as a platform to encourage, support, exhibit and sell the work of female photographers and artists. World Wide Women’s sensorial exhibitions seek to create a unique atmosphere through different artistic mediums, including photography, art, film, installation, and music. This sisterhood of female artists has been built on the shared vision of effecting positive change in the world through the creation and expression of art by joining forces to empower one another.

In 2013 gallerist and curator Andi Potamkin joined World Wide Women as the curator for the Ritual exhibition. Living in New York City, she is the co-founder of Kasher|Potamkin, an art gallery-boutique in Chelsea and the co-founder of Three Squares Studio, an art gallery-salon in the Meatpacking District.

Really glad to read that there will be a book of their work called "Return of the Goddess" coming out in the near future as well. Magnificent stuff.

World Wide Women is a creative collective of female photographers and artists from around the world. World Wide Women represents the free, indomitable spirit of women in the world of art today.

Curated by New York gallerist Andi Potamkin, of Manhattan gallery and boutique Kasher|Potamkin.

World Wide Women has chosen to explore the theme, Ritual: an homage to that which is lost but not forgotten, a prayer to that which is desired but not realised. Ritual promises to answer endless questions and offers escape from an unfulfilled reality. It is an act of veneration for the bird that has flown away, and for the hope of its return. The photographs, videos, and works on paper in this exhibition tell the story of a woman longing for that, which has gone, and craving that which has not yet arrived. A ritual requires physical imitation, but does not arise out of it. The infusion of pure emotion and true belief is what elevates the act to ritual. The action, in-and-of itself pure mimicry, is simply a part of the ritual as a whole. It is the combination of the conviction in the unknown and the intangible that makes it so. Ritual is arranged in a spectrum of colour and emotion, representing the different stages of a ritual: memory, sacrifice, reverence, and longing. The experience of viewing the show takes the observer through this journey, giving access to the wholly personal act of ritual as experienced by each of the artists: one in which the active body is not alone, but joined by an unnamed force.

In keeping with the experiential focus of Ritual, the exhibition will open with an evening of multisensory events. Visitors will be immersed in an array of scents and sounds as essence, film and even live musical performance occupy the gallery space. Short films will include Sandy Toes by Budapest-based artist Maximilla Lukacs, and A Story of Ophelia by Anouska Beckwith, while young British singer-songwriter Flo Morrissey will play the evening out with a short acoustic set. Founded in 2012 by fine-art photographer and artist Anouska Beckwith, World Wide Women acts as a platform to encourage, support, exhibit and sell the work of female photographers and artists. World Wide Women’s sensorial exhibitions seek to create a unique atmosphere through different artistic mediums, including photography, art, film, installation, and music. This sisterhood of female artists has been built on the shared vision of effecting positive change in the world through the creation and expression of art by joining forces to empower one another.

In 2013 gallerist and curator Andi Potamkin joined World Wide Women as the curator for the Ritual exhibition. Living in New York City, she is the co-founder of Kasher|Potamkin, an art gallery-boutique in Chelsea and the co-founder of Three Squares Studio, an art gallery-salon in the Meatpacking District.

- See more at: http://www.cobgallery.com/?exhibition=7201#sthash.QbjwVD1w.dpuf

World Wide Women is a creative collective of female photographers and artists from around the world. World Wide Women represents the free, indomitable spirit of women in the world of art today.

Curated by New York gallerist Andi Potamkin, of Manhattan gallery and boutique Kasher|Potamkin.

World Wide Women has chosen to explore the theme, Ritual: an homage to that which is lost but not forgotten, a prayer to that which is desired but not realised. Ritual promises to answer endless questions and offers escape from an unfulfilled reality. It is an act of veneration for the bird that has flown away, and for the hope of its return. The photographs, videos, and works on paper in this exhibition tell the story of a woman longing for that, which has gone, and craving that which has not yet arrived. A ritual requires physical imitation, but does not arise out of it. The infusion of pure emotion and true belief is what elevates the act to ritual. The action, in-and-of itself pure mimicry, is simply a part of the ritual as a whole. It is the combination of the conviction in the unknown and the intangible that makes it so. Ritual is arranged in a spectrum of colour and emotion, representing the different stages of a ritual: memory, sacrifice, reverence, and longing. The experience of viewing the show takes the observer through this journey, giving access to the wholly personal act of ritual as experienced by each of the artists: one in which the active body is not alone, but joined by an unnamed force.

In keeping with the experiential focus of Ritual, the exhibition will open with an evening of multisensory events. Visitors will be immersed in an array of scents and sounds as essence, film and even live musical performance occupy the gallery space. Short films will include Sandy Toes by Budapest-based artist Maximilla Lukacs, and A Story of Ophelia by Anouska Beckwith, while young British singer-songwriter Flo Morrissey will play the evening out with a short acoustic set. Founded in 2012 by fine-art photographer and artist Anouska Beckwith, World Wide Women acts as a platform to encourage, support, exhibit and sell the work of female photographers and artists. World Wide Women’s sensorial exhibitions seek to create a unique atmosphere through different artistic mediums, including photography, art, film, installation, and music. This sisterhood of female artists has been built on the shared vision of effecting positive change in the world through the creation and expression of art by joining forces to empower one another.

In 2013 gallerist and curator Andi Potamkin joined World Wide Women as the curator for the Ritual exhibition. Living in New York City, she is the co-founder of Kasher|Potamkin, an art gallery-boutique in Chelsea and the co-founder of Three Squares Studio, an art gallery-salon in the Meatpacking District.

- See more at: http://www.cobgallery.com/?exhibition=7201#sthash.QbjwVD1w.dpuf

December 16, 2014

I'm grateful to the many of you who have emailed or otherwise shared with me Hyperallergic's excellent recent article about Milwaukee's Mary Nohl House AKA "The Witch House at Fox Point." I'd not heard of Nohl or her home before, and it's bittersweet to learn of it now, just as it's enmeshed in a battle that's tragically going to mean its relocation. But I am in awe of this artist and her legacy.

Nohl was a single woman who, over the course of 50 years, filled her house and yard with her surreal, otherworldly anthropomorphic sculptures and paintings. Eldritch beings with elongated heads, serpentine forms, vertical fish, and more, populated virtually every surface of her dwelling, giving one the sensation of viewing a cottage-cum-fablespace, firmly rooted in mythic traditions and - perhaps unintentional, but certainly projected upon it by the townspeople - witch-in-the-woods tropes. Photographs online show that nearly every inch of the house is embellished by her artworks and designs. It reminds me a bit of the Bloomsbury group's Charleston House, and to my mind, deserves to be treated as such.

However, Nohl passed away in 2001, and the Kohler Foundation and other supporters have been fighting with the town residents for years about being allowed to preserve the site and open it to the public. Sadly, the residents have been staunchly resistent to the plan, and the entire site will have to be dismantled and relocated to Sheboygan. At least it will eventually be looked after, though it's a deep shame to sacrifice the psychogeography of her creative realm.